Thursday, January 05, 2006

western influence

I had purposely left this topic in my last blog. I am talking about westernized culture and its effect on us. I feel we are imitating the western life too much; not that western culture is all that bad, just that we are chasing our tradition away. We are instilling social and political ideas that are not indigenous to India. Those days whatever we borrowed from British were good; we realized that Government is an acceptable institution. Britishers also made us realize that Government would give us freedom of opinion, expression and the right to drive public demands in a peaceful manner. Yes! What we have borrowed so far has benefited India a lot, but now with growing IT companies and media the unwanted culture is penetrating deep into our society. We are as such sunk in ignorance and with this happening now, I feel we ourselves are eroding our own ‘self’. Yet you ask anyone about this topic they will have a ready answer “I don’t think western culture has done any harm to us, our culture is very strong and every Indian is held very tight to his/her root” but the stark reality is we are on the way loosing ourselves. The worrying aspect is some people are doing just for the heck of it. Already people are comparing Bangalore as another Bangkok! (I don’t want to dwell into this) Senior people are left on their own by the uncaring wealthy youth, and we would soon see another class poor old people and rich youth, and with this class on the rise we will see a lot of old age homes springing up. The emotional bond that we are proud of will soon die. The diversity that we are proud of will also soon die if not checked. A survey says that Indians are the most patriotic people, and with the current influence even that will change. Why is this happening? One reason is the IT industry and another is media. You see any bollywood movie made these days, but for the name of the movie and actors, it completely resembles Hollywood though in a smaller scale. Movies like murder which din have single page story line ran houseful and the reason is well known. Youth are like clay models who can be molded in whichever way wanted. Hey guys this is not the way to box office, please give us better and sensible movies. The challenge for India is to prepare itself to sit along with any other world class nation in a competitive world market. At the same time, it needs to avoid a problematic juxtaposition between cultural indifferences. Every culture has its depravations, every culture has had saints and great man today as it had earlier. Trying to imitate others will result in only one thing; we will have traditional values and cultures only in history books for our children. Lets hope we are not the cause for it.

25 comments:

Saravana said...

Good to see this post da fever - Too much of freedom to ignorance is spoiling the society, you should partially blame the education system too, ya a westernized educational system, which deprives you of what is real knowledge, the knowledge that leads you to distinguish good and bad. damn ppl think bad as good nowadays.

Good that you've not spoken abt the bangalore culture, no wonder the number of rapes in the country has gone up.

Machan I don't think its happening because of the IT industry da ... Its mainly because of the media ... fools are inspired by the animal instincts on the media ... sex is the main attraction in all movies, why bollywood, even tamil .. is there any movie without a sexually attractive female in it.

damnit da ... all of these things will have their consequences ... ppl should be ready to face it

NaiKutti said...

well written senthil... but i always wonder if its the media... yes, the media shows all those stuff... but people watch it... is it because they don't have a choice?... i don't know... DD for example shows good stuff but how many watch DD (i rarely watch it except for DD sports)...

i think both people and media are to blame... people always feel the other side is greener and hence would want to follow that only later to realize it isn't, but if its too late there is this point of no return... talking about other side is greener, i had written something on that earlier... here it is

Ramya said...

"Youth are like clay models who can be molded in whichever way wanted. "

but wat abt u da?!
well! jokes apart, action speaks louder than words. Discussion forums within the e-confines must be translated into action coz. at the end of the end of the day when we look back there must be something worthwhile that we leave behind. So...

Anonymous said...

Machi, never knew you could write so well. Good on ya mate.

Its quite natural that man goes in search of things that he does not have. Be it money (we prefer in dollars, dont we) or western culture or whatever...

If you look at some NRI`s they are more concerned about Indian tradition and culture. They visit temples more often than we in India do. And they make conscious effort to bring up their kids with values.

As mentioned, grass on the other side ...

- sudar.

senthil natarajan said...

@militry: I mentioned the role of IT coz of the money involved and direct interaction!! but yes media has a major role!
@karthik:agreed that ppl watch it! but probably this kind of a discreation cant be expected to soon from the ppl.
@rmya:agreed!

Matt said...

Media cause the first influence. It makes any non-IT youth too , to think waz wrong in THAT.
IT gives financial freedom to any individual which leads exposure to borrowed cultures.
People already started to follow "LIVE the LIFE" concept.

Marutham said...

Very well stated.........CLAY MODEL!
That is what these girls on movies are! Why go to movies..What abt the commercials we see in Channel'A', channel 'B' ........Why do they have a girl model on a shaving cream AD?!?And what is the role of the SILLY garments worn by girls on TEXTILE SHOP AD...(First of all those clothes wudn't be from that shop)who would take their son/DOT to buy such clothes.And these Discothe dances in the movies..They have these Girls (IMPORTED Girls- probably the drop outs from foreign countries)who are worse than the BANNED BAR dances. What is the need of hero to be in that place and shoot a song??When govt. was so resposible enuf to bann the bar dances why do they allow such scenes on the movies????And MOST of the present generation are not smart enuf to realize/distinguish what to follow and what not to.....that their fav. heros do.(First of all the heroes themselves are not clear abt it).And worst of all is bringing this western style of music to ours.....Why do that when we have great RAGAMS in ours.We have Gazal,Hindhusthani,Carnatic,.....Many more. Recently this Tamil moviee song bugged me alot."Hey u _ _ _ _ _ u there?Spin that S_ _ T up"?What the heck is this? Can he(SINGER) sing the same lines to an ordinary man in Tamil(/His mother tongue). Western culture has songs that have bad words,meanings in it.....even there a huge crowd is fighting against such music albums being released. So why try to download something that they themselves are struugling to get ridoff.....
I have earlier written a blog related to this issue in my blog dated OCT'30 & OCT'31.
This is like slow poison! We must stop this now. Or what can u say if a kid is going to sing this song in the School event or when a parent is going to say"En payyan nalla paaduvan. Uncle'ke paadi kamida.." And the kid goes like
"Vadi vadi vaaaaaadiiiiiiii......" See u r singing the rest. GOD SAVE THE FUTURE!I rembr my brother asking me to shut up and not sing wen i was in my skooldays singing"Kokku chaiva kokku......."

senthil natarajan said...

@sudar: thanks mate!
@matt:i do agree with u that the financial freedom has evolved over the time and now the youth are on thier own.
@marutham:i guess even u have been thinking of this for a long time now. The lyrics are too bad these days. I think its upto individuals discretion these days.

Anonymous said...

The blame game will be always there, the discreation of wat is good and wat is bad should be there. We cannot always look and want positives. Negative society has always domineered itself and it is for us to neglect it.
Well said anyways!
-sri

Anonymous said...

Any cultural changes has its own good and ill effects.. The British thought us democracy, also showed us that there is a better and faster way to travel to places than bullock carts by building railway lines, their rule thought us that protests need not be done thro force, it can also be done peacefully.. but they also left behind their culture that has in a way got imbibed onto us, which in a way has done some good in some areas but had its own bad implications on other areas. The entire thing lies on thyself on accepting the good and rejecting the bad..Now what is good and bad is one's own perspective...so the topic is entirely debatable..

senthil natarajan said...

@sri- its not the blame game, just that we are trying to imitate too much, accepted that it is upto individuals discretion, but the media should be slightly more sensible.
@gautham-this has been a debatable topic for quite a while now and i reckon it will be for our future generations as well.

Ponnarasi Kothandaraman said...

Hi,
Its good atleast there are people who realise these changes and make a note like you. Good to see that there are handful of people against this bad trend.

Have a nice day,
Ponnarasi Kothandaraman.

Marutham said...

HI SN!! Where have you disappeared for the past 8 days? And i noticed ur comment for the "That Xcpt for 1 day" only today.....And i have my Querry for that..Check it out! HAPPY PONGAL

Beautiful Mind said...

Machan..You cannot erode the Culture da. This had happened in past but we evolved around it and maintain it.

Please dont blame the IT industry, we are part of it. It may be the poor principles followed by the Industry, making use of the middle and lower middle class family woes. Sudden money at the young age,lack of mentorship and more privacy among youth.

Previously, we used huddle, cuddle with parents or bros or sisters, chat and sleep together. Now we are missing it as we grow. Mobile is adding to the woes.

You can blame the Media little bit but they supply to the demand. Maybe they are clever enough to create the demand a bit.

And finally it is upto the individuals, no one in IT field would compel you to booze or ignore the elders or party. I have attended all the parties or outings and funs for 3 odd years, no one had asked or forced to drink or dance?

senthil natarajan said...

@ponna- thanks! i think there are a lot of ppl who think i similar terms.
@marutham-just being a bit lazy
@naren- its just not boozin n stuff! and not even the money involved in the industry.... its the cultural interaction that is more in this industry. n just for the recordsa i have refrained from whatever u hv mentioned... atleast till date.

gP said...

A very good post.

First of all, there is no such thing as a western culture, I think were just scared of that dark thing that's trampling us that we need to catalog it. What is happening is globalization as a direct result of the lack of communication in our own culture. There is a vivid reality now where the learned cultured people are not doing their part in teaching the young ones to stay in the right path. If they do their job rather than saying that the western world is destroying them then there might be a solution.

I think the western idealogy is a testimonial of what a free society can do or how a free 'culture' can evolve. It eliminated the need for God, but we cant and we choose not to. Thats the only difference. there will come a time when the course of chaos will force the society to adapt changes and more towards a better future. There will be sacrifices but its not the end.

senthil natarajan said...

@gp-thanks for droppin in

Anonymous said...

you have written very well senthil.
I have the same views.I am a 14yr old teenager.But u know what, we cannot do anything.People like obsccene movies.and the producers fulfill their demand.But if u keep encouraging us i m sure the situation can be improved.

Anonymous said...

hmm....it is really awesome to see some1 writin like this kind of article...o..
its right... nowadays ppl r really thinkng bad to be gud....
this article is one way to show the youth the right path...
hope you write many more article which will influence more and more youth...
take care

whatname said...

historically western culture has bin fair in india... wa abt d elimination of sati n dowry??...

but, yes... the west also has some bad influence on d youth nw...
n its not dat we can do nothing... if one can b mould into a corruptd individual- such a person can b mould into a gud soul as well----- wat say??
it only depends on hw u look at things... wat u take in frm anything is wat counts at d end of d day.

Unknown said...

really fantastically well written

i would like to say that each coin has 2 faces. and so all the things in the world have a good aspect and a bad.....we adopted many good western ideas which were immensely important for the formation of modern india...and we in our indian culture also many black drops....like the caste system,sati,......,infact endless....so its on us what we adopt...we should make perfect choices to strive ahead and for these we need a mixture of both indigeneous and western qualities.........infact since india is so large it has countless good qualities as well so we should also see that westernisation is not the only method to become progressive....we can also do this by REFORMATIONof indian society...its the most important...eliminating the bad qualities of india fully will make india even in a better position than we can by the blend of indian and western culture

Anonymous said...

Its all becuase of western influence..I hear it everywhere..Can you go and live in India of 19 th century... then you'll know what the indian culture was....
All the things that you see today is not because of western influence..it is inherent human tendencies like desire for sex,desire for freedom..
western influence or not this has always been there in every society ...
have you read the puranas .. so they tell about kings or layman.. so they have apsaras.. so they tell always about fair females or dark ones ... just think !!!!

Anonymous said...

People western influnece if you say is borrowing ideas from west .. then we are now 90% westernised ....it has all blended in to our life so well,.. we dont recognise it ...
The houses we built, our kitchen,our beds,vehicles,schools,brushing our teeth with toothbrush .. you just need to compare the india of olden days to present to realise how our life has completely changed..Many things are not that indian as you think..even concept if monogamy is widely accepted from western society.. many ethos of our present day family from western society...and we protest when people celebrate a valentines days ...confused culture idiots

Anonymous said...

In ancient india family was not about love It was all about duty ...remember the purana story of wife taking the husband to prostitute house and serving him because it was her duty.. wife had always stay low ... you say this builds a strong marital bond .. no it was just an economic bond where wife was expected to do all sacrifices.. can we find a single line in indian books where they asks the husband to love his wife never .. it will always say protect her love to husband not mentioned...Female oppression was there in west too they have evolved much faster than us so now we are evolving...
should tell that limits on a womens dressing points to a closed society.. whatever reasons are given...it leads to suppression in different names.. as you can seen done by taliban

Anonymous said...

saree and churidhar of india are very uncomfortable and unsuitable to say the truth...these dresses women of perfect cleavage for others it looks odd ...that is why most women prefer jeans and shirt.. since it is western culture we shouldn't wear it and men can wear anything they want...